Greenhouse Gases Data Lesson
Lesson Plan
45 minutesGrades6, 7, 8Earth and Space Sciences
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Written by Dan Castrigano
About this lesson
This lesson is an exploration of climate change data, including greenhouse gases, global temperature, ice melt, and sea level rise.
Inquire: Students write down what they know about the four main greenhouse gases: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.
Investigate: Students collaborate in groups as they unpack data from NOAA, NASA, and other resources. Then students share their thoughts with the rest of the class.
Inspire: Students complete a written reflection.
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Everything you need to teach it
How to edit these materials (video)Teaching tips
Suggestions
- This lesson can easily be assigned to complete independently, with a sub or on a virtual school day, as students guide their own learning and discussion.
- This lesson works well as an introduction to a climate unit and establishes the evidence base that later lessons can build on.
- This lesson also works well as a culminating activity for students who have already explored individual climate concepts and are ready to synthesize their learning.
- Consider teaching this lesson before any lesson that asks students to evaluate solutions or take action on climate change.
- The five-group setup in the Investigate section works best for classes of about 15–25 students. In smaller classes, combine the sea ice and sea level groups. In larger classes, create multiple groups for the same dataset and have students compare their findings during the class discussion.
- For a stronger class discussion, have groups share in order from one to five. This sequence helps students see the chain of cause and effect as it unfolds.
- For social studies connections, the Inspire reflection prompts about who should act and why can be extended directly into civics standards around policy and collective responsibility.
- For math connections, the graph reading and trend description can connect with data and statistics standards.
- The writing in the Inspire section can be extended into ELA and argumentative writing.
Prerequisites
- Teachers will need to make a copy of the Student Slideshow, share it with students, and grant them editing rights. They will be writing in the slideshow during the lesson. Alternatively, students can write in their Student Document.
- The resources in this lesson are continuously updated with new data. Teachers should preview all sources prior to teaching or assigning the lesson.
- There are other greenhouse gases that students will not explore in this lesson. These are the fluorinated gases, “a family of man-made gases used in a range of industrial applications.” (Source: EU Commission)
- Students should have a basic understanding of how to read a graph, including what the axes represent and whether a value is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same over time.
- Students should have a working understanding of or review scientific terms such as hypothesis, evidence, trend, and data.
- Students should have a basic understanding of what greenhouse gases are and how the greenhouse effect generally works. Students can watch this video to review the topics.
- Teachers may want to be prepared to explain or review graph literacy and terms such as temperature anomaly.
Differentiation
- Seeing the extent of these numbers might cause feelings of anxiety, sadness, anger, despair, or surprise in some students. Make sure to remind them that those feelings are normal and natural. Sharing those feelings with the class usually helps students feel better. Encourage students to share their honest reactions.
- This exploration and these discussions might naturally lead to the “What can we do about it?” discussion.
- These graphs are all unsustainable. It might be useful to use these graphs to better explain the concept of sustainability to the students.
- Students should feel free to conduct research on their own to better understand the resources. For example, students can research sources of atmospheric nitrous oxide.
- As an extension, students can find an additional dataset not covered in the lesson and use the same guiding questions to explain how it connects to the other datasets discussed. Topics include ocean acidification, wildfire frequency, and extreme weather events.
- Students can write a one-page brief addressed to a specific stakeholder or decision-maker, such as a mayor, state representative, or UN delegate.
- Students can investigate a climate impact affecting their community and compare it to global trends they examined in the lesson.
- Groups that need support can be given pre-annotated graphs or simplified versions of datasets.
- Teachers can provide students with sentence starters for group discussion and written reflections.
From the scientist review
This lesson lets students explore almost real-time data on the ways human-caused global warming is disrupting different earth systems. All of the external links use the highest quality data available and are considered reputable sources. This lesson has passed our science quality assessment.
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About the teacher writer
Dan Castrigano
Academic Teacher at Burlington YouthBuild
Dan Castrigano taught STEM and humanities at elementary, middle, and high schools for 11 years. From 2021-2023, he served as the Chief Content Officer at SubjectToClimate. Dan advocates for climate education and organizes for climate, social, and racial justice.
